Ooni Volt 12 Review: Fast and Convenient
(*12*)
The physique has Ooni’s distinctive dark-grey turtle-like form, constituted of stainless-steel in a shell of powder-coated carbon metal that, once more, insulates it remarkably. I can relaxation my hand on the highest of the oven whereas it’s going full blast and it simply barely feels heat. The door is constituted of triple-paned, insulated borosilicate glass that appears designed to invoke deliberate comparisons to the Pizzaiolo, whose door is merely double-paned. It also can warmth as much as 850 levels Fahrenheit (Pizzaiolo can solely go as much as 750 levels, the losers!).
The door has three knobs on it. These knobs, sadly, did take me somewhat longer to determine than the Pizzaiolo’s, which include handy presets for various sorts of pizza. The one on the far left is a timer, the one within the center is the temperature, and the one on the far proper is what Ooni calls a Boost mode, which lets you switch warmth again and forth between the highest and backside heating components for various functions.
If you want your cheese barely browned, you possibly can flip the warmth up; if you happen to’ve been baking loads of pizzas, opening the door loads, and transferring dough in and out shortly, you possibly can preserve turning the dial to switch warmth again to the underside. It’s a easy perform, however the symbols on the dial are weirdly obscure.
Hot Hot Heat
It is insane how shortly the oven preheats. I’ll warning right here that I do advocate ready a full hour for the stone to warmth during, which is able to cut back the probability that your pizza dough will cool the cooking floor immediately and get caught. But the primary time I used the oven, I turned it on to 650 levels (what Ooni recommends for a “New York–style” pizza) and walked inside to tug elements out of the fridge. By the time I walked again out 13 minutes later, it was prepared. This is much less time than it takes my typical indoor oven to succeed in 400 levels.
The principal distinction between the Pizzaiolo and the Volt 12 is philosophical. The specs on the Volt are simply objectively higher than these of the Pizzaiolo, however greater than that, the Pizzaiolo lives completely indoors and has presets. While it does have a handbook mode that allows you to play pizza baker and hover across the oven, anxiously rotating the pie your self in order that it browns crusts completely throughout, you don’t really want to. It does really feel like playacting. By the time I completed my testing interval with the Pizzaiolo, I simply made dough, punched a preset, and walked away. It’s the perfect oven if you happen to’re a busy working mother or father with young children.
The Volt 12 does have an necessities booklet that allows you to choose which model of pizza you need and plug within the timer and the temperature setting. It’s not that onerous, and it does give the oven somewhat extra versatility. For instance, I simply discovered what grandma-style pizza is, versus Detroit-style (somebody will undoubtedly right me, however so far as I perceive it, grandma-style is thinner).
